This disclosure is related to the field of construction and operation of wells drilled through subsurface formations. More specifically, the disclosure relates to methods and systems for automatically determining priority of well operating tasks and allocating prioritized tasks to a corresponding means for execution.
Well construction software programs known in the art generate a set of actions to be executed by various personnel. A generated set of actions may be displayed on a graphic user interface such as a computer display or may be printed. A set of actions generated by programs known in the art may include a linear operations workflow on a single well. Linear operations workflow in the present context may mean a set of operations performed successively in time.
Some well construction software programs known in the art generate warning signals when conditions in a well exist or are expected to exist that may have risk of adverse wellbore conditions that exceeds a selected threshold risk, but such programs typically only notify a user of potential or actual risk conditions exceeding the threshold. In such known software programs, the user determines actions or prioritizes suggested actions automatically generated by the software to correct the conditions that result in the above-threshold risk. The user of such programs also determines successive actions to be undertaken to advance the well construction process. When there are multiple causes of above-threshold risk and/or multiple possible actions to advance the well construction process, the user must exercise personal judgment to determine the task order and response action needed for each task.
Remote wellbore operation is typically performed by communicating measurements from a well construction site to a location having one or more computer systems operating software as described above. In computer systems known in the art executing such software, each well may have its own set of displays, e.g., on a graphic user interface. A wellbore operations person (e.g., a drilling engineer) remotely working on multiple wells often needs to open many different windows on many different display screens for each well. The number of displays could readily exceed the capacity of the person operating a multiple well computer system. In such cases it may be possible that key tasks are not instructed to be executed (e.g., communicated to well construction site personnel for execution at a drilling unit) in a timely manner or errors in selecting the task parameters may be made. Some multi-well operating parameter displays are known in the art, but they are not integrated with the well task execution for each well, and do not generate a list of instructions and supporting information to provide immediate decision support.
Single-well task generation software known in the art has not proven successful for aggregation of information and/or prioritization of actions to be taken on each of a plurality wells operating contemporaneously.
In certain well construction environments it may be desirable to reduce the number of people at the well construction site in order to reduce health, safety and environmental (HSE) exposure and operating costs. However, software known in the art that supports remote activities is substantially the same software designed for drilling unit site executed operations. Such software is designed to provide displays and input controls corresponding to the personnel who have been moved to a location away from the well construction site, but still requires the same personnel to interact with the well construction equipment, albeit remotely, such as measurement while drilling (MWD) measurement monitoring and reporting and directional drilling (DD), and such software is generally designed for single well operations.